I've often wrestled with the issue of hifi and whether its worth it or not...

I do believe they're are improvements to be had by spending a bit more... compared to an all in one mini system from an electronics store at £300 or more... or rather i used to believe it... its often difficult to try to even persuade hifi people to even consider the possibility of this.. obviously there is an element of protecting your investment in hardware (similar loyalties run deep in games consoles wars etc)...

Anyways i've seen links and discussions on this before, i thought it'd be good to try and collect all of this in one place.. I'm sure somewhere i got a stereophile article off someone on here (dibrom?!) about a blind test they did with interconnect or spaeaker wire.. using real cheap wire compared to some mid range hifi interconnect... few people managed to spot it... if any blindly...

Its this kind of information that'd be great to have to try and let people read about it and at least consider to potentially save them more money... so any articles, links to tests done or discussions would be great.. other than just informed discussion on this thread or links to other threads would be great...

Firstly i think it'd be good to confront the wires issue... leaving whether certain hifi equipment is even useful or not.. this kind of information would be more easily absorbed by hifi-ers than telling them that there really is no need to buy an expensive cd player if you already have one... also with dual output devices (my DAC has two outputs) its much easier to easily let ppl setup two interconnects and quickly switch to do some blind testing...

I'll allow that cables may make a difference in some cases (probably due to capacitance issues, better shielding, etc. that could be interpreted as improvements). However, how the hell do you think a power cord will make a difference? I'm not sure you realize what the current is traveling through before it hits the wall socket -- are you? You think it's "audiophile grade" wiring in there?

If you rewired your house completely from the transformer outside to the wall sockets, you get my respect. Otherwise, I have to say "complete BS" as far as power cords go... you're imagining it, period.